Whether you have a domestic or commercial coffee machine you are going to need to change the group seals in them at some point. Or perhaps you want to remove the shower screen and give it a good clean. The good news is that it's quite a simple procedure and something that you can easily do yourself. If you can do it yourself you save a few dollars rather than paying to have a technician come out. Apart from a new group seal there's only a few basic tools required that you can easily get your hands on at any hardware store. If you attempt to do it yourself after watching our video we'd love to hear how you went with it.
Unedited Video Transcript
are your group seals leaking in your
coffee machine do they have a tear
are they crumbly hey stick about now i'm
going to show you how to change the
group seal
and the shower screen in your commercial
and domestic machine
hey guys welcome back to the artisti
YouTube channel where we guide you
through all things coffee
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below we love answering those questions
so the shower screens and seals are a
consumable part on a coffee machine
the seal will actually go hard and
brittle and will leak when you're
locking your group handle
so that is one thing you're gonna have
to change every three
or maybe six months if you're lucky in a
commercial environment on a domestic
machine you're probably gonna have to
look at it every year
and the shower screen if you're not
cleaning it properly and you need to
know how check out our video on how to
clean
your machine properly it will actually
build up a lot of coffee oils and not
actually
allow the water to flow through properly
so let me show you how to change them
all
so to show you how to do this we need a
couple of simple tools and there are
three different types of
shower screens and seals that are pretty
common out there which i'll show you
how to to navigate each one of those
it's really easy
if you have a group seal pick which is
that's a right angle one
then you'd have a curved one if you
don't have that you can use a skinny
long pointed screwdriver and break a
seal and
some seals need to be leave it out with
a little stubby flathead screwdriver
or they actually have a screw which you
have to undo to release that shower
screen
so the three main types here are a
shower screen that has a central screw
which holds it in place
once you undo that screw that will
actually drop out
then we have a shower screen which
actually holds the group seal in place
so that one needs to be levered out
then you have a shower screen which is
actually separated from a
blah a brass shower head essentially and
they are joined together
by an actual screw as well so
they're the three main shower screens
essentially and when you look at seals
these are all 58 mil e61 standard size
seals for commercial machines or a
higher quality domestic machine
so with a seal there's usually two sides
to it
and you can see they'll have a marking
on them essentially
or a beveled edge or
even a flat with a beveled edge now
if there's a marking on them generally
the marking will go up into the machine
and the bevel edge will go down so it
seals onto
your grip handle so to show you the
process
we have to look at how we remove that
shower screen first
with the shower screens that have the
screw in them
you have to remove that screw first they
will drop down
and then you'll be able to pick out your
shower screen
now you can see in a lot of these shower
screens there is a tiny little
cut in the edge which you can get your
little
group pick to go in there and lever it
out and that will drop out
some of them like a lumozako here have
have four of them and much bigger
gaps to get in they're really handy so
try and look for that little hole
where you can jam your screwdriver or
the picking to to lever that out
now if you don't have the screw the
identifier is
usually that it's this type of shower
screen and what that is designed to do
is the inside of this group seal
actually has a bevel on it
and there is a little chamfer on the
outside of the shower screen
and they sit into each other and once
they're pressed in
and you push them up into a coffee
machine it will expand and actually hold
this group seal in place
so that's what holds it in but also
that's how you get it out
and to get it out you'll see there is a
ring around the outside edge
a little indentation and if you get your
flathead screwdriver
and pop it on the edge you can then
simply lever it out
on four different sides and you'll pop
out looking like this
so if you remove your o-ring out of your
actual coffee machine and you find a
little paper shim
that's an identifier that it sits on top
of the actual group seal
as it goes up into your machine and it's
a spacer
so it could be a one mil or a point five
mil which means that that
um seal is going to lower down in the
basket and generally that means you've
got a bit more wear
in your actual coffee machine so
you can either buy the next seal in a
bigger size up to maybe an eight or an
8.5 mil
a normal machine would have usually a
six or seven mil
so if that helps you understand what
actual seal to buy
that's a good sign that you need to buy
a bigger one let's get into
uh changing a lump zocco shower screen
so we're going to
take our handle out and pop your head
under here this has the
flat head screwdriver which we've got to
get in here and undo that screw
and naturally you can see that shower
screen falling out
you don't want to lose these screws
they're very important the water
actually goes through that screw
then comes out the multiple holes
essentially giving you a
water flow across the whole shower
screen so now you can see that there is
no
that's a solid block we can't take that
out but up underneath
the lumizocker actually has a little
cutout channel here which is amazing
there's two of them one on either side
and that allows you to get your group
pick in and under
tuck it in and under and you can simply
pull that out
now that has snapped which is fine a
little
trip tip when you do that is just follow
it around making it look a little bit
hard at the second here
well now that it's snapped get back in
there there we go so you can get your
finger on it
you can then get your little group pick
and just make your way around oh look at
that
there's actually a paper gasket in there
now the only reason that would have a
paper gasket is when we did a service on
this machine we didn't have the right
seal
so i'm going to make sure we put the
right one back in there
make sure we get all of that seal out
here we go which is good
and i always do a little check just to
make sure nothing's caught there if they
match up nicely you know you've got
all the parts to the seal out so this
looks like
it was a seven mil seal and at the time
we needed an
eight so that's why we've put the paper
gasket in there now if you can
basically crunch and break a seal
that means that you need to replace it
or if you start getting black on your
hands
they can be carbonized if you don't do
it often enough
it can actually be so solid you can't
get them out so it's a real challenge so
just keep an eye on those and change
them regularly
so to get this back in um it is handy to
have a little bit of a food grade grease
it will go in a lot easier and also come
out a lot easier
so you don't need a lot you only want to
put it on
the back side so this one has little
numbers on it
and the bevel is facing down so i'm just
going to put something on the
outside edge lightly
and just a little bit on the inside edge
and that'll help it slide in place so
when a group handle goes in you've got
the two notches some machines have
three but generally that's a good spot
to start where your fingers are
and if you push them in and up
using this gap here you can generally
push it all the way up
with your finger now we just need to go
back
and make sure that the rest of the
actual seal is pushed up in place
now there's two ways of doing this you
can sit here and push all the way around
with your flat head screwdriver you
don't want to break the seal
another little tool which is a bit handy
is maybe a
big flathead screwdriver like that it's
a bigger surface area and it won't
damage the seal
i'm going to show you a little trick
that i like using so i'm just going to
make sure that these two
notches the seal is bedded in nicely
there for those parts
and i'm going to do the same on the
other side
and then what i do is i actually connect
the handle in only on
one side and then i use the actual
shower screen
to turn that and push the seal back up
in place so we'll see if we can get this
one
shown for you there so put that in and
then i just
move it around and then lock in the
opposite side
[Music]
okay then you should be able to get both
of them up at the same time
and they're in so that's just how how i
like to do it
then i know that it's been pushed in all
the way around
and if your seal is a little bit too far
to the left it can pop out easily
if it's ideally in line coming straight
you've got the right size seal
if your handle is going all the way to
the right you've got
two smaller seal and that's where you
want to put a gasket in there
or get the next size up so these are
great for this machine
that's hot water tap and that will be
the perfect position for this machine
and bed in nicely
now that the seals in we just need to
make sure we put our shower screen back
in
do it up finger tight
you'd want to inspect that shower screen
as well these ones are really nice and
durable these new
lamazoco ones that have the line in them
and just nice and firm
and that shouldn't spin it should be
nice and tight in there
and that's ready to go let's have a look
at a home machine
where i can show you how we remove the
different type of seal and shower screen
so this is a rocket apartmento
it's a very popular common model out
there and the front head of this
is very common in a lot of italian made
machines
i'm going to remove the handle there
it's got the lever in it
so if you've got this kind of machine
these are all a 58 mil
e61 head basically and they'll all use
the same
seal so we'll get our little flathead
screwdriver
and we're going to pop that between the
edge where the handle would normally sit
and we're just going to lever that i'll
try from this side here
just to lever that down you see it pops
a little bit i'm going to come the
opposite side
and leave her again and one more lever
and it'll pop out nicely and again you
can see that that
set the actual seal is still attached to
the shower screen
so this is a brand new seal brand new
machine doesn't need to be changed
but you can pull this out and inspect
that quite
regularly and if you're cleaning behind
your shower screen you're going to get a
much
better tasting coffee so if you have
this kind of machine i encourage you to
pull these out more regularly when
you're doing your back flushing as well
so pop that back in i'll do the exact
same process there's a little bevel on
the inside here and the numbering is
facing up
we're going to pop it into the actual
shower screen just so it fits nice and
snug like that
come down to the same spot where the
little
lugs are cut out i'm going to push up
with my two fingers
on both sides
and i'll grab my group handle
lock it in one side turn it around
lock in the other side turn it round and
then i can do both of them
and that's back in
cool so guys thanks very much for
watching i hope you've
learned how to change your shower screen
and your seal in a couple of different
machines
if you've got a question please leave it
down below we'd love to hear from you we
do get to answer most of the questions
that come through we're really
excited about some of those questions so
thanks very much
thanks for watching guys have an awesome
day see you next time
